


The Fifth

by dickard23



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, V for Vendetta (2005)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fire Nation Royal Family, Guy Fawkes Day, Military, Murder, Revenge, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-06 19:11:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3145421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dickard23/pseuds/dickard23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Former Fire Nation soldiers start dropping like flies. Zuko tries to solve the murders only to find a connection between their murders and his sister's suicide. Will he catch Guy Fox in time?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fifth

Hama’s Village

**October 103AG**

It rarely rained in the Fire Nation, but when it did, it would never just drizzle. The water would fall in waves until it was like a flood. The thunder would crash from the sky like Odin was trying to fry the ground. The thunder would keep people up at night. Entire houses would be full of awake people, staring at the harrowing sky.

A police officer was scrambling to get home when he tripped over something. He saw a man on the ground and instinctively carried the man to his house for medical attention. When he called his wife to help him, she came downstairs just to shriek.

The man looked down to see that the poor bastard was dead, had been stabbed several times and whatever blood that was still in him had poured onto the officer. It had been raining too hard for him to feel it. The blood had just felt like rain.

It wasn’t until the next day that he could get any assistance. The local police had seldom dealt with strange cases like this one. They usually just dealt with theft and assault.

“You found him in the street.”

“I tripped over him and when he didn’t get up, I assumed he had fallen down. I carried him home to help him. I was so distracted by the rain that I didn’t even realize he was dead.

“How weird?” The officer told him. “How long you think he’s been gone?” The coroner hadn’t arrived yet.

“I got off of work at 5PM last night.” The officer couldn’t leave earlier when it had just been drizzling. “I must have tripped over him between 5:10 and 5:20. I was home by 5:30.”

He showed the police where he had found the body.

“Someone must have just thrown him in the street afterwards,” the responding officer concluded.

“Or he had been on his way home when the killer came across him and killed him in the street.”

“Isn’t that risky?”

“No one goes outside when it rains in the Fire Nation. This is the most hydrophobic nation in the world.”

“Good point,” the man conceded.

When the coroner did arrive, he said that the man had been dead almost 24 hours. “I would say he died around 3PM yesterday.”

“The rain really started to hit at 3:30. He had probably been on his way home to avoid it.”

They couldn’t identify him until his wife came to file a missing person’s report the next day.

“Has anyone seen Kuzon?” she described her husband.

The officer at the station looked through the reports and said, “He might be the dead guy.”

“THE DEAD GUY!” she started freaking out. When she got to the morgue, she passed out. It was her husband. Someone murdered him.

**November 103AG**

Two weeks later, they had no suspects. Corporal Kuzon was a good man. He was a combat instructor during the war. He barely saw battle after his first tour 10 years before the war ended. He had no outstanding debts, no longstanding feuds, and he wasn’t even having an affair (anymore). The police had no leads, and it looked like it would be an unsolved case forever.

“Usually something pans out,” the captain said in surprise.

No one had a reason to kill this guy, except for the one who did. The case was cold until 4PM when another murder had been reported.

They got a message from Fire Fountain City.

“The Fire Lord wants us to report to duty in Fire Fountain City,” a man called out.

“Why?”

“Because another man was found dead, and he was military too!”

There was a concern that this may be the work of the Freedom Fighters, a terrorist group that had tried to overthrow the Fire Nation during the war. They had claimed to be for peace after learning their stunt in Gaipan, but Zuko’s intelligence officers thought they were out to get payback from Jet’s death. Their aggressive tactics in Yu Dao were not forgotten. They were on their way to becoming Fire Nation’s Public Enemy #1.

* * *

 

Two hours later, the police from Hama’s Village were reporting for duty in the city, at the crime scene of a staff sergeant from the Navy.

They found the officer in charge and he began to explain.

“There have been threats against the Fire Nation military since the war ended.” Most of them were general threats. Some of them were aimed at any and all who planned Sozin’s Comet. “Mostly it has just involved skirmishes and such, but now we have two murders. The Fire Lord told all cities to be on the look out after Kuzon’s murder, and now we have another one.

The Fire Fountain City officer led the visiting team to the body.

“Our vic was stabbed, but he was also bashed on the head, likely with a rock. We don’t think they served together, army and navy, but we are looking to see if they had ever been stationed in the same place at the same time or had ever lived in the same city at the same time.”

“We have to find out if these cases are related and if so why?” The Fire Lord said as he came into the room, taking the officers by surprise. His voice was booming more so than usual. “Was this a personal connection or are they being targeted because of their service. I have a lot of soldiers out there, and I need to know if they are all at risk.”

“Of course my Lord. We’re doing everything we can.”

The first team came with the evidence they had from Kuzon’s murder. “Our coroner calculated that the knife used was at least an 18cm blade, judging from the deepest stab wound.”

“That is consistent with our deepest stab wound of 15cm. This could have been the same knife.”

This guy was found dead in an alley, not too different from the man on the street.

“Was he robbed?”

“We don’t know. He only had his ID on him. He either had no ban or the killer took it.”

“There was no attempt to hide identification. The faces weren’t bashed in or burned.”

“Did you see any evidence of firebending?”

“No.”

There was no fire. The killer was likely a nonbender.

They worked together for the next few days. The cases looked the same but the connection between the victims was weak.

“Their service overlapped by four years,” one officer said. “They had an 18 month span were neither was deployed, but they didn’t live near each other.”

**Capital City**

“What do we know?” Mai questioned.

“They think it’s the same killer,” Zuko told her. “Based on the stab wounds, the killer is short and uses 18cm length blades.”

“An interesting choice. Mine are shorter, which makes them easier to control.”

“This person must be good. They saw no defensive wounds on either victim. They both died before they could fight.”

“Experienced short knifewielder. Have you tried looking through the assassins you have on profile?”

Zuko wasn’t sure, but he wrote it down just in case no one looked yet. “We need a motive. We don’t have one for either of these men.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in!”

A servant came rushing inside. “Urgent message from Mai’s father.”

“Come at once. I have information about the murders!”

They rushed to Mai’s father’s house where Mai’s mother let them in. “Would you like a snack?”

“We don’t have time for snacks,” her husband snapped.

“Don’t be rude. I’ll cook while you all work!”

Mai’s mother was so domestic that it used to disgust Mai. Now it made her sad. She thought about paying her mother money to stand up to her father once she was Fire Lady. “We’ll talk later Mom!”

They went inside. Her father was shaking.

“What has you so scared?”

“I was minding my own business when a masked man stuck a knife in my face. He said I had to get this letter to the Fire Lord, or else I would get what I deserved.”

“What did he look like?” Zuko asked.

“I said MASK! A freaking weird mask, with a fake mustache and goatee.”

“On the mask?”

“Yes.”

“Can you draw it?”

The man started to draw.

Mai made a face. “That is a freaking weird mask.”

Zuko started to read the letter.

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November!

Dear Fire Lord Zuko,

As I’m sure you know, the fifth of November is a very important date. It was on this date three years ago that your sister, Crown Princess Azula, committed suicide, spirits rest her soul.

As you probably do not know, she did not pick this day at random. The fifth of November was a special date to her. One she chose to make sure no one ever forgot it. It was this day, six years ago that she was forced into intensive training, to become a super soldier.

She was a victim to abusive tactics, drugs designed to heighten her awareness and make her prone to anger, hours and hours of combat training with little food, water or rest, and “intensive interrogation” or as I call it torture to make sure she would never reveal what they did to her.

She was a 12-year-old girl, stripped of her humanity and forced into becoming a war machine. She was used and abused until she broke and then she was thrown away, left to be nothing except the shell of the shining star she had once been.

She knew she would never be normal again. She knew no matter how much therapy or psychiatric medicine she would never be okay again. She took her life because it was the only way to escape the pain. She took it on the fifth of November so it would be a date that the world would remember.

The two dead men were both apart of this program. They took orphans from their homes and made them become soldiers. They were apart of the conspiracy that would ruin your sister’s life. They died as punishment. They will all die as punishment. There are 13 people left to catch, and I will catch them all.

Guy Fox

“Could this possibly be true?” Zuko said as he read it.

“I didn’t read it. I don’t know,” Mai’s father told him.

Mai read it next.

She had remembered that this was the anniversary of Azula’s suicide. She had not, however, expected her motivation to be so selfless. Mai had just figured she broke from her father’s abusive treatment and her determination to believe that he did it all for her own good, lying to herself and to everyone else every day until she couldn’t take it.

She hadn’t realized that Azula had been hollowed out until she just caved in. “There’s two types of drowning. There’s drowning because you can’t swim, and drowning because the world is holding you under.”

Right away, Zuko requested that his uncle come to help him, and Team Avatar reconvene.

Suki was already at the palace. The warriors had come to protect Zuko about a year after the war ended.

Sokka had been with Aang and Katara dealing with some trade dispute in Omashu. Toph had been trying to teach metalbending in Ba Sing Se, but her students’ lack of skill made her want to cry.

“What does it take to find an earthbender who’s not a total wimp?” Toph demanded to know.

“Can’t help you there,” Aang told her.

“I know. You’re the wimpiest!”

They got to Zuko’s conference room where he thanked them for coming on such short notice. Then he got straight to business.

“Last month, a retired corporal from our Army was found stabbed to death in the street. Two weeks later, another veteran, a staff sergeant from the Navy was found stabbed to death in an alley. Both murder weapons were fairly long knife blades and the wounds may be congruent.

Neither man had known enemies. Neither had outstanding debts. The only thing we know about both of them was that there was an 18-month stretch during the war where they were both at home instead of being deployed.

Just last week, I received a letter that had been delivered by a man wearing a mask and wielding a large knife. He alleged,” Zuko held up the letter, “that the two murders were retribution for my sister’s suicide.”

Everyone glared at him. What the fuck! Suki moved closer to Sokka. Even hearing about Azula in death made her uneasy.

“He claims that Azula had been apart of a program where she had been abused to make her the perfect soldier. That she had been drugged to be violent and more alert and energetic, subjected to abusive training regiments with little rest or food, and that she had been tortured systematically to make sure she would never reveal the existence of this program.”

Aang felt like he was about to puke. Katara was too on edge to realize he was about to fall out of his chair.

“Her training started on the fifth of November in 97AG. She killed herself three years the same day, and I got this letter on the fifth of November just last week.

He says he’s going for everyone involved in the program, but I can’t prove that it exists, much less who was involved. Unless the men come forward and admit to torturing my sister and being the reason she went crazy, they will likely die.

Any questions.”

Toph wished that she had a sassy remark to lighten the mood, but she had nothing.

Eventually, Aang asked, “Did the letter say how many people there were in the program?”

“Oh right, he said that he was two down and 13 to go.”

“Do we where your sister was over those three years?” Katara questioned. “If our killer is targeting the people who harmed her, then at least some of them must have been where she was.”

Zuko shook his head. “I was banished months before this started, and Iroh went with me. My father, of course, is not cooperating.” He denied any super soldier program.

“Who were the highest ranking people in your father’s military? No way they didn’t know about this.”

Zuko produced a list. “Many of them were deployed during Azula’s training. They may have known about it, but I wouldn’t know which one of them were involved.”

“We should just visit them all,” Aang said. “There’s no harm in asking if they know about this program.”

“Unless they think we’re there to arrest them, and they attack us,” Sokka pointed out.

“Well yeah, but other than that.”

* * *

 

They split up into groups.

Aang and Katara were doing the islands since they had Appa.

Toph and Mai were looking through Capital City, so Toph wouldn’t have to fly on Appa and Sokka and Suki were going to do the surrounding towns to get the few generals that weren’t in Capital City.

Aang got to a door and knocked.

“Hi I’m here for …”

“It’s the Avatar! Come right in!”

The woman grinned as he came to see her. Katara glared as they came inside.

“Is your husband home?”

“Oh yeah he’s out back. Wynn!”

Wynn came running to the front. “Oh look it’s the Avatar! What can we do for you?”

“We wanted to ask you about a Fire Nation military program. He had been operating during the war.”

Katara explained the allegations and he said, “I never heard anything about that. If Ozai was doing something like that, he must have had doctors or medical experts to treat the patients. I’d try the royal doctor.”

Aang got the most suggestions.

Sokka got the most doors slammed in his face, and Mai got the most “tell your dad I say hello” sentiments.

Their day was less than satisfying.

“I can’t believe no one knew anything,” Suki said.

“Oh someone knew,” Sokka retorted. “Probably the ones who slammed the door in my face!”

“That one guy got your nose.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

Iroh made it a few days later. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here earlier, but I was having trouble at the shop with some creditors, and I didn’t want them to try and seize my assets while I was away.”

Zuko showed Iroh the letter.

Iroh gulped. “This is horrid.”

“Do you know of any secret training grounds?” Zuko asked. “Anywhere they could have taken Azula so no one would see her.”

“They might have put her on a ship. Azulon would do secret experiments on ships so he could just sink them if they didn’t work out.”

If that’s the case, they were probably sunk already. Zuko can check just to make sure, and if they contact the ports, they might have information on any ships that had been sunk over the past three years. Maybe they’ll get lucky.

**December 103AG**

A month after Zuko got the letter, he found out about a ship that had been abandoned near the Black Cliffs after the war.

“We didn’t know what to do with it, so we kept it in the shipyard!”

The investigators and the Fire Lord got on board to see a spinning chair with straps.  
There were beakers, powders, serums, and deep basins.

“What are those for?” Zuko questioned.

He didn’t like the answer he got.

“Those are what investigators use when they waterboard people.”

“When they what?”

“Hold their head in water to make them think they’re drowning.”

Zuko flipped out. “How long has this been going on?”

“Your grandfather found it to be most useful in the 80s when he wanted captured Earth Kingdom soldiers to talk.”

Zuko added it to the list of banned practices.

They made it through most of the month with no homicide, but then on All Spirits Day, December 25th, a man’s throat was cut right on his front doorstep.

Someone knocked at the door. He came out and was pulled outside. Then his family heard running. When they got to the door, the First Sergeant was dead.

Ursa had come with Ikem and Kiyi to celebrate the holiday. He had to leave them with Mai while he went to the crime scene.

“You don’t want me to come with you.”

“Do you really want to see a guy’s throat that was already cut?” He always wants to protect her from gore. He forgets that she used to be an assassin.

Zuko hadn’t told his mother about Azula’s abuse yet. The woman already blamed herself for her older daughter’s suicide. She might feel even worse if she learned all that happened to her while she was away.

**February 104AG**

There had been no murders in January. This was of little comfort for Zuko. He pushed his men hard all month, but they were struggling to find out anything substantive about this program.

They tested the powder and serums and like the letter’s said, one was used to make people alert. Similar compounds were used to help people with narcolepsy. “It’s like that but not for narcoleptics. It takes normal people and elevates them,” the doctor told him.

The powder was just talcum powder. They weren’t sure of its purpose.

Zuko was in his office when he got an urgent message. A factory was on fire.

He rushed to the scene to see firefighters putting out a blaze that had all but ruined the factory. The building would likely need to be leveled since so much damage had come to it.

Loban was crying. This had been his business after his mine collapsed over a year ago. “Someone up there hates me!”

“How did the fire start?” Zuko wanted to know.

“It was arson my Lord. Someone used accelerant to light the left side of the building on fire and the wind carried it through the building. It was most interesting. The fire was started in the top of the building.”

“Why is that weird?”

“Usually, fires are started from the ground, which is why it is hard to get out of them. It’s like someone wanted the building to burn, but they also wanted the people to escape.”

“So it was on purpose, but it wasn’t murder.”

“Not quite,” another officer said when he came from inside of the building. “There was a man stabbed to death in the toilet.”

So the fire was connected to the super soldier program. “Was there any note left at the scene?” Zuko questioned.

They started to look for one. Eventually, they found one taped under the rock.

“Dear Fire Lord Zuko,

At first, I was only going to kill the Sargent Major, but then I realized that Loban was the perfect target as well. He had nothing to do with this program, but he has a history of exploiting workers, underpaying them, giving no regard for their lives or safety and it is unacceptable that he is allowed to become rich on the backs of the weak. Just as the military tried to get success by abusing their special soldiers, bastards like Loban tried to steal from his workers to line his own pockets with ban.

This ends now. The proletariat will rise. The workers will take back what is rightfully theirs, and the thieves who do not repent will soon fall to their knees.”

Guy Fox

Mai was perplexed. “So this guy is now avenging the entire labor force and Azula, what a weird juxtaposition of causes?”

“He seems to think they are the same cause. As a soldier, she was an exploited worker. He wants a revolution I guess.”

“This sounds like some Freedom Fighter shit!”

“They hated Azula.”

“Would they hate her if they knew of the program or would they say the Fire Nation was so evil that it abused its own princess for power? Maybe they think they can liberate the weak or something, or maybe it’s not them at all, but it sounds like something that would be up their alley.”

It did. Zuko asked Kuei for any information he had on the group. It was a matter of national security.

**March 104AG**

Instead of murder, the new crime of the day was arson. There had been a list posted in Capital City of the ten lowest wage payers in the country, five of them were in Capital City even though it was one of the richest parts of the country.

“We can no longer stand idle as the greedy steal what belongs to the working poor. It is their labor that makes the profits. It is their skill, their work, and their pain that makes what the wealthy call a comfortable life. If they will not pay what is their fair value then they should not get to have anything at all.”

Often, the Fire Nation nobles go away during February or March to Ember Island. It was during these vacations that their businesses were attacked. Windows were broken, fires were set, and registers were cleared out.

To make matters even worse, university students were writing papers, supporting the working class in spirit even if they thought arson was an unacceptable way of reaching their goals.

“The time for change must be now. How many nobles got rich off the war, and how many poor died from the fumes of the factories or out on the battlefield?”

Once the third fire had occurred, the other seven business owners were quite scared.

Some of them hired extra security. Others thought about moving to the Earth Kingdom. Only one of the businesses just paid higher wages to bring their company more in line with the rest. That was the only business that was spared.

Over the two months that the wealthy called the Spring Terror, well placed bombs managed to cause serious damage in every building owned by a cheap bastard. They always got passed security or happened at night when no one was there.

Somehow, no one died in the attacks.

**June 104AG**

Zuko called a world summit, unsure of how else to address his problems. His officers, damned their hardest, could not get anywhere on this program. There were lots of missing records from the war.

“The evidence was probably burned my Lord.”

The materials used in the bombs were all easy to get. The shrapnel had been nuts and bolts. The blasting jelly can be pinched from a construction site, and it was possible that some of the employees for the companies were involved in the attacks, making it easy to avoid security.

The Freedom Fighters had gone nowhere near the Fire Nation. Instead, they started mobilizing the workers in Omashu and Gaoling, hoping to spark a revolution that could make it all the way to Ba Sing Se.

They met in Omashu since it was the most central city.

“Thank you Bumi for hosting us,” Aang started. “Since Zuko asked for this summit, I think he should go first.”

“About eight months ago, a Fire Nation veteran was murdered in the street. Two weeks later, another veteran was murdered, and a few days after that, I learned that the murders were retaliation for a program to make super soldiers during the war.

My sister had been one of the people they experimented on. Her death has been attributed to the abuse that she suffered, and the killer has chosen the anniversary of her suicide as the rallying point for his cause.

He writes on every letter or notice he sends out, ‘Remember, Remember, the fifth of November. He alleged that there were 15 people involved in this program, and he has already killed four of them. We cannot figure out who was responsible since the paperwork was destroyed, and of course no one has come clean.

To make matters even worse, the killer thinks that some of the employers in the Fire Nation are paying abusively low wages and has begun setting fire to their businesses or blowing them up unless the pay more. Out of the ten businesses he targeted, only one paid a higher wage in response. The other nine were all destroyed over the past few months.

My people are calling this the Spring Terror. The newspapers are writing about it every day. I need to find the people who responsible for this program, so I can figure out who is killing them off. The killer somehow knows who they all are. I need help. My officers are doing their best, but it’s not good enough. The only witnesses say that the killer wears this freaky mask, and he’s short.”

Arnook went first. “How much of this does the public know?”

“The public knows about the targeting of the buildings but not about the super soldier program.”

“Maybe you should announce it. If people start talking, you might be able to figure out who ran the program and get the rest of the people while they are alive.”

* * *

While Zuko was trying to get the public to help him provide information on this program, Kuei had his own problem.

To settle the issue with the workers, Bumi put in a minimum wage in Omashu. It set different wage levels for unskilled workers and skilled workers. It was the most revolutionary legislation he had ever passed, and once the Freedom Fighters got it, they started to march to Gaoling.

There weren’t factories in Gaoling, but there were lots of service people, people who barely made enough to eat. They didn’t make enough to take off sick or to buy medicine for themselves. Maybe they could buy it for their children.

“Fair wages for our work!” Sneers yelled as they started to catch the attention of the servants. They were on the public sidewalk but shouting so loudly that the servants could hear them.

“How many of you don’t make enough to buy medicine or take sick days? How many of you hope you don’t run out of food before payday? How many of you will never get a pension plan? It’s about time we stand up for ourselves. If your employer paid you twice as much, it would be of little consequence to them. They would be able to eat the same food and go on the same vacations. This means the world for us! Let’s fight for it!”

Right away, the nobility freaked out.

“We need a noise ordinance!” Lao demanded.

The city government passed one, banning the Freedom Fighters from making so much noise that they could be heard from the homes.

Undeterred, Longshot and the others started making flyers, sliding them under doors and putting up posters in the city square. They would be heard. The masses would rise.

Instead of setting buildings on fire, the workers in Gaoling just walked off the job. They said they wouldn’t come back until they got a 50% raise.

Houses became filthy. Restaurants had to close. Food was spoiled, as there was no chef to cook it.

The nobles called the police, demanding that they make the employees go back to the work, but they had no recourse. The Constitution forbids forced labor. They had to let the workers strike.

Toph came to see a group of servants picketing her parents’ house.

“What are you doing?”

“They won’t pay us fair wages, so we won’t work!”

“I see. Rise with the Proletariat!”

Poppy was mad to see her daughter out there. “What are you doing?”

“Supporting the working class!”

Lao demanded she come inside.

“Why don’t you just pay them more, so they go back to work? Wouldn’t your have a clean house and cooked food?”

“Who are they to tell me what I should pay.”

“Who are you to tell them what they should earn?”

Things got worse before they got better. Desperate people tried to break the picket just to get attacked by the others. It was weeks before the nobles finally agreed to negotiate.

Populist movements sprang all over the Earth Kingdom, slowly making their way to Ba Sing Se.

The Earth Kingdom had its Summer of Revolution. By the time it got to Ba Sing Se, Kuei was very scared.

**August 104AG**

“Justice Delayed is Justice Denied”

Dear Men and Women of the Lower Ring,

I write to you as a friend and as a brother. I have once walked in your shoes. I know what it means to do all of the work and get none of the pay. You all work long hours for little food and filthy conditions while your counterparts enjoy the fruits of your labor.

The smog from the factories is here, but the coin from the products you make is all in the Upper Ring. The long hours, workplace accidents, disease and lower life expectancy are all here in the Lower Ring. The vacations, the fancy dinners, the hospitals, and the spoils are all above you.

It is not because you don’t work hard enough. You are the hardest working people on Earth. You are drowning because the upper class is holding you under. Break free from their bondage and rise. Claim what is rightfully yours. Fair wages and the end of this forced segregation.

Demand a minimum wage and social equality. You have earned it 1000 times over.

Guy Fox

Some of the Fire Nation soldiers had retired in the Upper Ring. One of them died the morning this notice appeared all over the Upper Ring.

Guy Fox had come to Ba Sing Se spreading the calls for social reform.

A week later, masks started to appear in the city.

Wear a mask if you want to become apart of something larger than yourself. Wear a mask if you want to become apart of the idea that will save the world.

Once the masks were distributed to the masses, they donned them and the Freedom Fighters led a charge into the Middle Ring. They forced their way passed the guards who blocked off the entrance to those without permits and started rallying in the streets, calling for people to join them in their push for equality. It was time to take on the Upper Ring. It was time to take on the King.

* * *

Zuko got word of the murder and sent an investigator out to learn what they knew. This was murder number six. They had one murder in July. Zuko realized that the ranks were going up. Soon they would be at the people who planned this all.

Zuko had put in a public notice, pleading for anyone with information about these tragedies or about any secret programs during the war to come forward. No one had. It seemed that these people would rather die than expose themselves while they are alive.

Suki read the paper. Yet another murder, this was starting to get boring. “Murder, Arson, Murder, Arson, does anything good ever happen around here?”

“Not really,” Mai told her. Suki was the closest thing to a girlfriend Mai had left. Ty Lee snapped after coming back to the palace.

She pretended that she was fine when Azula killed herself. Mai knew better, but she also knew to wait for Ty Lee to come to her. Instead, Ty Lee slowly started to pull away from both Mai and the warriors. When she came to the palace, she only made it two weeks before Mai caught her, in Azula’s old room, holding one of her shirts and hoping that it still smelled like her.

Ty Lee must have been ashamed to be caught because she took a leave from the warriors to never return.

Mai hoped she was in the circus again. She feared that Ty Lee might have killed herself to join Azula.

“I just want to have something to celebrate for once.”

“Yeah, I thought we’d all be happier when the war ended.”

“We were happy until …”

“Yeah, until then.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We weren’t friends anymore,” Mai said quickly.

“Doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt you.”

“I was mad at her for being so selfish. Now I hate myself for not being there for her. She shouldn’t have died, not like that.”

“This wasn’t your fault.”

“I know. I hate myself anyway.”

* * *

The Upper Ring was on fire, literally. Homes weren’t safe. Businesses weren’t safe. They even set fire to city hall.

The military responded, but there were hundreds of people acting like a giant mob. Arrest one criminal and three take his place.

The violence would happen until Kuei made a decision. Would he give into the mob or would he fight it in the streets?

**September 104AG**

Kuei had refused to negotiate with terrorists, and he chose to fight. The Freedom Fighters had all fled the city. They had been declared terrorists for the fires even though they clamed it was Guy Fox. No one believed them. They had to take shelter with sandbenders.

Fires were set in the street. The police and military were fighting angry civilians, and there appeared to be no end in sight.

The Avatar came to try and bring peace, but they told him, “We want to end the permit system and get living wages. If he won’t deliver, then he won’t live to be our king!”

Of course, Kuei refused both demands and Aang found himself in the street, trying to keep the military and the Proletariat away from each other. Katara healed the wounded on both sides.

“The people should not fear the government! The government should be afraid of the people!”

A man shouted from on top of a building wearing all black and a mask. His followers cheered as they flung bottle bombs at the enemy. They would make their voices heard. Their demands would be met. They would rise. The wicked and the greedy will fall.

* * *

In Capital City, Zuko had another more murder, bringing the count up to seven.

“My work is almost done,” Guy Fox wrote to the Fire Lord. “There will be one murder a week until they are all done.”

Zuko was ready to pull out his hair. This Guy Fox was teasing him. There was no way to protect so many veterans. Zuko would have to let them fend for themselves and they were all failing miserably at it.

He went back to Boiling Rock.

“Father, seven soldiers are dead.”

“Did you lose another war?” Ozai sneered.

“They were murdered for what happened to Azula.”

“Oh what happened to her?”

“They will kill you father.”

“So you think. Maybe I had nothing to do with this. Maybe I know nothing.”

“You lie.”

“That’s for me to know and for you to find out!”

A week later, there was another murder. This one was a Chief Warrant Officer.

“Unlike the others,” the coroner told him. “This one was kicked repeatedly while he was dying. There was a personal rage with this one unseen in the others.”

* * *

Ba Sing Se was destroyed. Kuei was trying to stay firm in his convictions but the Council of Five thought enough was enough.

“Let’s make the deal and save what is left of this city.”

They pressured him into establishing a minimum wage for the city and for a systematic ending of the permit system. It wouldn’t be over night. First there would be day passes and then they would start to increase the number of upper ring permits until they could handle the flux of ending the permit system.

Kuei reluctantly signed the deal. “I don’t want this to be the way people negotiate with me!”

“No one does, but the violence has to stop,” Aang said. “It’s much too dangerous to keep fighting.”

One Week Later

A nurse woke up to see that she was facing a mask.

“Are you going to stab me too?”

“You have already been poisoned. You only have a few minutes left.”

“I know it’s much too late, but I am sorry.”

“It’s never too late. Just rest now. It will be easier if you don’t try to fight it.”

* * *

 

Zuko wouldn’t have even known she was one of the 15 if there hadn’t been a note there.

“He used a painless poison,” the coroner noted. “This was the most merciful killing by far. My guess is that she gave the pain meds to the super soldiers. She kept them healthy enough to get more abuse.”

“Wouldn’t they have died without her?” Mai questioned.

“One or two yes, but if they couldn’t get a nurse at all, then the program would have to end. She took the extra money and looked the other way. That’s why he killed her … or so I assume.”

The next murder was Lieutenant Xu’s. Now they were down to six.

“I’m sure one of them is Ozai,” Zuko said. “He’s probably last.”

“It will be hard to get to him in a prison.”

“I’ll double security when it’s closer and then hopefully, we’ll catch this Guy Fox in the cell.”

“You want to save Ozai.”

“I want to catch the man who managed to get half of Ba Sing Se burned town and killed a lot of people. If Ozai lives, he can consider it a birthday gift.”

**October 104AG**

First it was a captain who got killed while on his way to work one morning. Then it was Col. Mongke who was killed while he was on a private assignment in Shu Jing.

One week later, they had a brigadier general who lived on in the same village as Yon Rha.

A week after that was a man who had apparently been living under a fake name in Hira’a.

Zuko had put two secret agents in the prison, one as a new guard and the other as a prisoner. Hopefully, they would be able to find out if an inside job was coming.

* * *

“Have you heard anything from the prison yet?” Mai questioned.

“No.” They’ve been at it a few weeks. It’s almost November. He needs to know what’s going to happen to Ozai before then.

It was October 29th when Zuko finally had something.

“One of the guards switched to get a Ozai shift on November 5th.” He apparently really wanted to work that day.

Zuko had the man taken to interrogation.

“Why did you want to work on this date?” Zuko questioned.

“I was hoping something cool would happen, and I could sell my story to the press!” He insisted he was innocent.

“My Lord,” a man came and interrupted. “We need you.”

“What’s going on?” Zuko asked as they went down the hall.

“Someone’s stabbed Ozai!”

“What? But it’s not …”

They rushed to the infirmary. Ozai didn’t have a lot of time.

“Who did this to you?”

“Who cares?” Ozai snapped. “You’ll find out the truth soon enough.”

“What does that mean?”

“What it means is I didn’t start this operation dumb-dumb! Someone else did, and he’s gonna get it next week.”

“Who would do this if not you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know!”

Ozai died a few minutes later.

**November 104AG**

Team Avatar and the Crown met on the Fifth of November.

They had no way of knowing who would be attacked, but they wanted to be able to close in on Guy Fox as soon as possible.

“I can’t believe he killed everyone!” Sokka exclaimed.

“If this is even true,” Toph added. “There’s no proof other than a boat with serum on it.”

“Even if the accusations are true, how do we know he got the right people?” Katara asked.

They had dim sum and tea brought to them. No reason to panic on an empty stomach.

It was a few hours later when Zuko got a message.

“Guy Fox wants to meet with me. He says he wants to turn himself in.”

“Is it a trap?” Mai questioned.

“Maybe he wants to kill you,” Aang said to him.

“I don’t know, but if he’s here, I think we can all take him.”

Zuko agreed to meet with Guy Fox and he was taken to the garden. Everyone followed him.

“Who are you?” Zuko questioned.

“I am but a man in a mask.”

“I can see that.”

“I wasn’t commenting on your vision. I was just pointing out the paradox that you asked a man in a mask who he is.”

“Have you killed the last target?” Aang questioned.

“That depends on what you mean by kill. He’s still breathing, but life is an illusion, a board game before they revoke the board. His days are numbered. I can count them on one hand but right now, he lives.”

“Where is he?” Sokka questioned.

“He is right here, with us.”

Everyone looked around. “It’s just us here,” Toph said.

“You’re a smart one. Who out of all of you could have been the one in charge of this program?”

Suki had an idea. “Was it you? You killed your cohorts and then decided to take your own life as atonement for what you did to Azula.”

Guy Fox laughed. “Very clever, but no. It is the only other person who could have had such influence in the Fire Nation Military. I’ll give you a hint. The planning for this project took years. It had to be someone who was quite active in the military in the early 90s.”

Zuko frowned. “The only person here like that is Iroh.”

“Very good! You win.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Iroh insisted.

“Really? You are telling me that you did not propose to your father that you could enhance your soldiers’ performance with drugs, that you would take Ba Sing Se and no one would be able to stop you. Your momentum would carry you to win the war. Isn’t it true that Azulon was supposed to abdicate to you after you took Ba Sing Se?”

“We might have discussed his abduction, but we never discussed using drugs.”

“I don’t believe you. I am quite certain that you were the master behind Operation Demi God and that you arranged for the medical testing to happen on boats that were disguised as tour boats to go around the Fire Nation over and over again.

Furthermore, you secured a field in the western most part of the country where you could train without civilians watching you or even knowing you were there. You put it all together, but then you backed out. You changed your mind. You think that was enough to absolve you?”

“Can you prove any of this?” Katara accused.

“I can but I can do better. I can get Iroh to confess. You see, he changed his mind because Lu Ten found out about the plan and said it was cruel and inhumane to treat their own citizens like lab spider rats. He found out that your team got approval for this operation by fudging your test results and suppressing the bad data, and he threatened to go to Azulon with the whole thing.

That’s why Lu Ten was stabbed to death. He didn’t die during the siege. He was murdered because the people who doctored the test results wanted to keep their jobs (and their lives). If Azulon learned what they had done, they surely would have been fired if they got to live at all. Your son was murdered, and it was all your fault!”

Iroh broke down. “I tried to save him. I told him not to confront these people, that we should just explain everything to Azulon when we got home, but that wasn’t good enough. He fired off letters, angry letters. He wanted to hold them accountable. They killed him, and I didn’t want to tell my father what happened in a letter, so I said he died in battle. I was going to come clean when I got home, but he was already dead. Ozai had already become Fire Lord.

I told Ozai to pull back on this plan, that the perfect soldier could not be made, but he must have done it anyway. I’m sorry for everyone who got hurt. I didn’t know that they would carry on the mission after I withdrew from the project.”

Zuko was hyperventilating. Lu Ten was murdered? Iroh was behind this all along. Why didn’t he come forward? He could have told Zuko who would be targeted. They could have tried to settle this some other way

“That was a wonderful performance. I would have believed you if there weren’t more to the story.

Zuko wasn’t banished for speaking out of turn. He was banished to get him out of the way, so that no one would notice when Azula was sent away for the weekend and came back with bruises. You volunteered to go with him, giving Ozai the perfect chance to turn his daughter into a weapon.

The worst thing about all of this was you knew the side affects of the serum: the rage issues, the impossible amount of energy she exuded, the hallucinations, and psychosis.

This all happened when you did the trial in 95AG, but instead of telling Zuko that she was likely a victim of a monster you created, you instead left her to the wolves. You wrote her off as evil or crazy. You even taught Zuko how to redirect lightening so he could kill her, like she was a monster when all along, the monster was you.”

“I didn’t know,” Iroh pleaded. “I really thought she was just crazy. I didn’t mean to …”

“What you meant to do doesn’t matter anymore,” Guy told him. “The poison is in your bloodstream. You will be dead in three days. There is no cure.” The cup that held his tea had been rubbed with poison before he drank from it. He never stood a chance.

Iroh turned white and fainted.

Zuko was in shock. He was just too drained to do anything.

Katara started trying to heal Iroh, but she wasn’t sure what she could do. There were lots of poisons with no cure.

“Who are you?” Mai finally questioned a knife in her hand

“I was a woman once, a Princess, before I got turned into a monster.” Azula threw off the mask. Her hair had been shaved off at the beginning of the year. It was still short. “My suicide attempt failed. Zuko couldn’t tell because my heartbeat was so weak when he got there. I recovered, and they just cremated a sapling instead.”

“Where’s Ty Lee?” Suki questioned.

“She lives in my house. She ran away again, and she went to a house that had been given to me on my 13th birthday. She was surprised to see me in it, and she freaked out because she thought I was a ghost.”

“Does she know?”

Azula shrugged. “She helped organize the riots, so she knows that much. I don’t know if she knew I was the one doing this or if she just told herself it was someone else. She’s not as dumb as she pretends to be, which makes it hard to know what it is that she knows.”

“Why?” Toph didn’t get it. “You could have gotten them arrested.”

“It was too late for me,” Azula said. “The only way it was fair is if it was too late for them too.”

* * *

Iroh’s death was painful. Azula picked a nasty poison to take him apart. The pain kept him awake and somehow pain medicines only felt worse once they went through his body.

The Royal Doctor wouldn’t have wished this on his own worst enemy. Azula was cut from a different cloth.

Azula sat in a cell in Boiling Rock. This time, she deserved to be there.

“Why did you stab them?” Aang questioned.

“I wanted them to remember what they did to Lu Ten.” _I wanted them to remember what they did to me._ “He had been sleeping in his tent and woke up to a 18 cm blade stabbing him in the chest. His last moments were full of pain and anguish. He deserved more, and I can’t give it to him. I did the next best thing.”

“Killing people is never the answer.”

“Tell that to the men you drowned in the Northern Water Tribe. Tell that to the men who died when Sokka crashed the sky ships. Tell that to all of the men who were experimental soldiers. I was the only one to survive. They all either died of the abuse or were killed when they tried to run away.

I’ll never forget their faces. I wore the mask not because I was afraid of getting caught but because there is more to the story than just me. I was just one of them. We are all that mask. We were the martyrs for the cause. When I put on that mask, I am invincible because I am an idea, and ideas can’t be killed.

You’ll never stop me. You may have be imprisoned here, but there are thousands of masks around the world, thousands of people who are willing to stand up to those who take what is not theirs and the revolutions will not stop.”

“You can’t save the world by setting your enemies on fire. Hate just begets more hate. The world needs peace.”

“There is no peace without justice Aang. There will be no justice until the ones on the bottom of the totem pole claw their way to the top. Oppressors will never stop without help. They have to have their hands forced.”

Epilogue

They never found Ty Lee. She is somewhere in the world, sparking revolutions with her pretty grey eyes.

Ursa came back to the palace when she learned her daughter was alive. She was horrified to learn what Ozai had done to her, and even more frightened when she learned what Azula had done for her revenge.

“How could my baby …” Kill unrepentantly like that. Iroh was dead. Zuko insisted that not a word come out about this program that he created. He wanted his uncle to be buried with honor and to be remembered for the good things.

Zuko hoped that his shameful past could be forgotten. Azula helped with that, whether she meant to or not; she killed all the witnesses.


End file.
